The Witness Blanket

On a recent visit to Winnipeg, I toured the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) with Dr. Clint Curle, Senior Advisor to the President of CMHR.
As we visited, we discussed how religious freedom is explored by the museum’s curators. More specifically, we looked at the tensions that exist between competing rights and privileges in Canada and across the globe.

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter

Convivium Weekly: Our wrap-up of notable news, ideas, and images— sent by email. Get Convivium Weekly delivered to your inbox.

On a recent visit to Winnipeg, I was given a tour of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) with Dr. Clint Curle, Senior Advisor to the President of CMHR.

As we visited, we discussed how religious freedom is explored by the museum’s curators. More specifically, we looked at the tensions that exist between competing rights and privileges in Canada and across the globe.

Dr. Curle is a former Professor at Carleton University, where he taught at the intersection of human rights and legal theory. We viewed The Witness Blanket, and later spoke about this exhibit and the role of museums in reconciliation.

Pieces of floorboards, walls, doors, religious iconography, paintings and more are intricately placed side by side to form a mixed media commemoration of residential schools in Canada. It holds segments from survivors’ belongings, too. Books, clothing, toys, and even the hair of residential school survivors are woven together in the memorial. These pieces of history tell onlookers a story that has long been muzzled.

Strewn in the wake of the Indian Residential Schools are an immeasurable number of broken or damaged pieces. These fragmented cultures, crumbling buildings, segments of language, and grains of diminished pride are often connected only by the common experience that created them. Imagine those pieces, symbolic and tangible, woven together in the form of a blanket. A blanket made from pieces of residential schools, churches, government buildings, and cultural structures.

Dr. Curle describes the charge for museums to be active in reconciliation:

In the Summary Report of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Commissioners spoke directly about the role of museums in reconciliation. They said: ‘Museums have an ethical responsibility to foster national reconciliation, and not simply tell one party’s version of the past. This can be accomplished by representing the history of residential schools and Aboriginal peoples in ways that invite multiple, sometimes conflicting, perspectives, yet ultimately facilitate empathy, mutual respect, and a desire for reconciliation that is rooted in justice.’ The Witness Blanket exhibition does all these things. It fits well with our overall approach to our work, which focuses on bringing diverse voices and viewpoints together to encourage reflection and dialogue on human right.

The Witness Blanket offers a platform on which Canadians can hear the untold stories of survivors and ultimately practice the empathy and solidarity required for reconciliation.

Koffler Centre of the Arts in Toronto fosters inter-cultural dialogue through contemporary art. Read how the Jewish cultural organization sparks public conversation on some of life's most important questions.

How are faith, academics, and athletics all connected? We asked Kim Chapdelaine, assistant track and field coach at Trinity Western University in Langley, BC about that. For Chapdelaine and her family, coaching is intimately tied to seeking God’s kingdom.